


Thoughts Not Spoken

by potatoesanddreams



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Emotional Hurt, Friends to Enemies, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Internal Monologue, Nostalgia, Tolkien Gen Week, Tolkien Gen Week Day 2: Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:27:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25130872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potatoesanddreams/pseuds/potatoesanddreams
Summary: Do you remember me, Annatar? Do you remember who I am?Written for Tolkien Gen Week, Day 2: platonic relationships.
Relationships: Annatar & Celebrimbor | Telperinquar, Celebrimbor | Telperinquar & Sauron | Mairon
Comments: 9
Kudos: 67
Collections: Tolkien Gen Week 2020





	Thoughts Not Spoken

**Author's Note:**

> Language notes:  
> Celebrimbor translates to Silver-grasp  
> Þauron is the Fëanorian form of Sauron, pronounced Thauron with an unvoiced "th"

Do you remember me, Annatar? Do you remember who I am?

We made such beauty together, before we ever thought of Rings. I recall there was a mesh of copper wire so fine its strands could not be seen, but the sunlight glanced off of them like fire suspended in the air – and a crystal spyglass, through whose perfect lens one could read the face of a traveler on the slopes of the Ered Luin – and a pendant set with a ruby, whose light we coaxed forth until the silver surrounding it shone with the soft crimson of the setting Sun!

When will you make such things again? 

_Ai,_ go home! Go – turn, and ask forgiveness, and bear a penalty that will _end_ , and live then forever in the love of metal and forge and fire and the beauty that they bear! Why will you not go home? Can you not see how much you have lost – how much you have thrown away?

When you first came to our workshops all that you forged was flawless, and none of it was worth the metal it was made of – for though we were in no peril your concern was all for function, how you might forge a thing that would serve you, and you had no thought of making anything that was lovely beyond its use. I wondered greatly that a Maia should care so little for beauty, and I remembered Galadriel’s mistrust; but Narvi said what I was thinking, and you bowed and smiled and told us some lie I do not now care to remember – and you _changed._

And was that change altogether for the sake of your lie? Tell me it was without lying now, I challenge you – for I saw you, _I saw_ _you_ , bent over your work for hours, days – molding, engraving, singing forth wonder. You were like one given water who had been half-dead of thirst; you were like one who had lain long in prison, seeing the walls crumble at last around you, feeling the wind on your face and the warmth of the sun.

Yet still you spoke of power and of potency, and I listened, fool that I am, and followed you, for I was thinking of peace and shelter and abundance, and of the beauty of growing things that would never die! I thought you were of like mind. I did not think – how could I have thought –

You are like one half-dead of thirst who finds a clear mountain spring and defiles it. You are like one who fears the brightness of the light and the sweetness of the air, and builds up the walls of his prison again, and leaves himself no doorway. Fool! Base coward! O lower than a worm! Why will you not _go home?_ Do you think that the Valar are as merciless as you?

Even if they were, of what worth is this life you are living, that you should care to defend it?

We made such beauty. Even the Rings were – I did not know then what you meant by them, I did not see what you were doing – yet they _were_ lovely still, though you left them maimed. The strength in them, virtue calling to virtue – the light they bore, the eager life –

And you bend them to thralldom.

Your new Ring is an ugly thing and a pointless one. It need not suit you as it does.

And now you would have the last and dearest treasures of my heart that you have not defiled – my own Rings, and with them my people, and if I will not give them up for terror of you, then you mean to break me to pieces and pluck them from the wreck. _What do you think I am?_ Do you know nothing of me still, after all the years and all the work we shared? Do what you will to me, you shall not have them. You mean to melt me and reforge me, but I am silversmith, not silver, and I was not forged but born – and it may be that Eru has set in me a fire greater than you know.

I am not the silver, but the silver is in _my_ hand.

Do you remember me, Þauron? Do you remember who I am?


End file.
